918 January 2005 update

918 January 2005 update 918
January 2005 Update

918 on January 22, 2005.

In spite of the crappy weather, things are still getting done. The brake rebuild project on the lead trck is nearly finoshed. The headlight compartment has been restored. The number board boxes are nearly finished and and we are getting ready to letter the right side of the locomotive. Also, the WP herald is done...

Brakes, trucks and paint...

	Don, Jon and Guy work on hanging the brake hardware.

	Fresh paint on the front grabirons.

	Black paint applied to the side panels. This is where the lettering will go.

	Al works on door lock mechanisms.

	Jon grinding some brake hardware parts.

	Don and Al working on one of the lock boxes.

	Special guest helper Don Pomplun showed up on Jan. 22nd and is promptly put to work cleaning up the trucks for repainting.

Headlight and Number board boxes

	Guy preps the number board box so that the bezel will fit properly.

	Guy fits the bezel and lines up the bolt holes.

	Meanwhile I worked on getting the headlight back together. This view shows how it looked before.

	The headlight compartment with fresh suede gray paint.

	Cork gasket material was used to seal the bezel. While this is not what was originally done, we decided that this may give better protection that the thin rubber half round gasket that was originally used.

	Headlight glass gasket going into place.

	After the gasket was set in place, the glass went in next, then the bezel. Compare with this photo...

WP Herald

The WP herald, or medallion, was going to prove to be one of the more challenging aspects of this restoration, or so we thought. Should we use a decal? An original (if one could be found)? Or just paint one ourselves. The decision was made a couple months ago to go in halves with Portola Railroad Museum on a run of about 100 full sized decals and then split them. We would set aside a few for 918, then sell the rest. Everything changed when Portola sent us the EMD blueprints for painting the lettering and stripes. Included in the package was a blueprint for the WP medallion. This was a surprise. With the full sized blueprint, I was able to make stencils from that and paint the medallion. Don was confident that he could make the proper crease in the middle to conform to the nose door. We decided to go with stainless steel so that it doesn't rust away on us. This was not nearly as hard as we thought it might be. Plus, it's just as original looking as - well... the original!

I would like to thank Rod McClure from Portola for providing us with the documents that made it possible to get this part of the project done.

	A little homework for Don and myself. First, Don located a good piece of stainless steel. He then notched out the corner for the door handle, then drilled the holes for mounting. After that, he made the proper crease down the middle to fit the contour of the door. He then handed it off to me for painting.

	Fits perfectly.

	Next, the metal was prepped and primed with self etching primer.

	After light sanding and Scotch-Briting, it was painted in black Centari 5000.

	After the paint thoroughly dried, it was masked and the stencil was then set in place. The letters were traced, then cut with an Xacto knife.

	Ready for the white paint.

	After the white paint was applied (and dried), the next layer was "feather river route". This was masked, cut out and then painted black.

	After painting black.

	Finally it's ready for the red paint on the feather. Thanks to Howard Wise for lending me some red Imron paint for this job (same paint that was used on the 5472).

	Couldn't resist seeing how it looked on the locomotive.

On Saturday January 8th, the stored PLA equipment was finally moved to the canyon. The locomotives that were
stored here went too, leaving only the OTR 97 and 918. Kinda lonely around here...

Photos and text by Dan Furtado

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